A number of mechanisms are configured to accept and validate or count coins, including such devices as vending machines, certain gaming devices (slot machines), pay telephones, bus or subway fare boxes and the like. Miscounts or other malfunctions of such devices can result from a number of causes. Moreover, these devices may be susceptible to certain types of misuse or cheating, such as use of slugs or foreign coins, retrieval of coins following deposit and the like.
Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a coin handling device which provides a lower error rate (or permits use of less expensive acceptance/counting mechanisms without degrading performance) and is less susceptible to misuse or cheating. Preferably, the device is relatively small and compact, and has a low cost of design, fabrication, shipping, maintenance and repair.